"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Turn on the TV news, and that’s all you hear. Whereas Jehovah smote the ancient Egyptians with a series of plagues, now we’re cursed with a repetitive plague of Egyptians on TV news. Dan Collins reacts poetically:

The so-called “pro-government” forces are actually Mubarak’s cleverly orchestrated goon squads . . . The opposition, largely cognizant of the dirty game being played against it, nevertheless has had little choice but to call for protection against the regime’s thugs by the regime itself, i.e., the military. And so Mubarak begins to show us just how clever and experienced he truly is. The game is, thus, more or less over.

If this were a socialist regime cracking down on its opposition — e.g., Chavez in Venezuela — the Left would shrug and say something about breaking eggs to make an omelet. But what the Left accepts when done on behalf of the “proletariat,” it finds intolerable when done without such a revolutionary pretext. Or, as Lenin put it: Who, whom?

However, whereas doctrinaire Marxism is disavowed by the 21st-century American Left — so vehemently, in many cases, that it is considered de facto proof of “extremism” for any conservative even to speak the word “Marxist” as an accusation — the Left has a more difficult time denying that their foreign policy instincts are fundamentally anti-American. That is to say, whenever any overseas problem arises, the leftist insists that under no circumstance should the United States pursue a given policy merely because it would advance U.S. interests.

If Islamic jihad is bad for America, the leftist reckons, Islamic jihad can’t be all bad. So, mirroring their Cold War stance, the Left in the 21st century may be described as anti-anti-jihad. (And Pamela Geller is Joe McCarthy!)